Musth

An Asian Elephant bull chained during musth. Note the discharge from the temporal glands.

Musth or must/ˈmʌst/ (Urdu: مست) is a periodic condition in bull (male) elephants, characterized by highly aggressive behavior and accompanied by a large rise in reproductive hormones. Testosterone levels in an elephant in musth can be as much as 60 times greater than in the same elephant at other times. However, whether this hormonal surge is the sole cause of musth, or merely a contributing factor, is unknown. Scientific investigation of musth is problematic because even the most placid elephants become highly violent toward humans and other elephants during musth.

Contents

Although it has often been speculated by zoo visitors[1] that musth is linked to rut, it is unlikely there is a biological connection because the female elephant's estrus cycle is not seasonally-linked, whereas musth most often takes place in winter. Furthermore, bulls in musth have often been known to attack female elephants, regardless of whether or not the females are in heat. There has been speculation that musth is connected to natural periodic reorganization of dominance among males in elephant herds.

Often, elephants in musth discharge a thick tar-like secretion called temporin from the temporal ducts on the sides of the head. Temporin contains proteins, lipids (notably cholesterol), phenol and 4-methyl phenol,[2][3]cresols and sesquiterpenes (notably farnesol and its derivatives).[4] Secretions and urine collected from zoo elephants have been shown to contain elevated levels of various highly odorous ketones and aldehydes. The elephant's aggression may be partially caused by a reaction to the temporin, which naturally trickles down into the elephant's mouth. Another contributing factor may be the accompanying swelling of the temporal glands; this presses on the elephant's eyes and causes acute pain comparable to severe root abscesstoothache. Elephants sometimes try to counteract this pain by digging their tusks into the ground.

Musth is linked to sexual arousal or establishing dominance, but this relationship is far from clear. Cases of elephants goring and killing rhinoceroses without provocation in national parks in Africa have been documented and attributed to musth in young male elephants, especially those growing in the absence of older males. Studies show that reintroducing older males into the elephant population of the area seems to prevent younger males from entering musth, and therefore, stop this aggressive behavior.[5][6]

A musth elephant, wild or domesticated, is extremely dangerous to both humans and other elephants. In zoos, bull elephants in musth have killed numerous keepers when a normally friendly animal became uncontrollably enraged; in contrast to normal dominance behavior, bulls in musth will even attack and kill members of their own family, including their own calves. Zoos keeping adult male elephants need extremely strong, purpose-built enclosures to isolate males during their musth, which greatly complicates the expense of attempting to breed elephants in zoos; most zoos that keep a single elephant or a small herd typically have only females for this reason.

In India, domesticated elephants in musth are traditionally tied to a strong tree, or two strong trees, and denied food and water, or put on a starvation diet, for several days, after which the musth passes. Mahouts are often able to greatly shorten the duration of their elephants' musth, typically to five to eight days; xylazine (sedative) is also used.

The approved method in developed countries is to strictly isolate the elephant in a highly fortified secure pen for a period ranging from 1 to 2 months until the elephant emerges from musth on its own. Medication against swelling and pain, as well as tranquilizers, are often mixed into the elephant's food. During this 1–2 month period the elephant cannot be trained, allowed outside or permitted to see other elephants, and must be fed, watered and cleaned by remote methods; it will surely attack any approaching keeper. Some[which?] Indian mahouts decry this method as more cruel than simply starving/dehydrating the animal for a week, upon which it recovers and can be safely reunited with the herd.

In modern usage in Indian languages the word refers to a state of enjoyment, fun, pleasure or gratification—of any kind, experienced by humans or other creatures. In popular culture, the word is encountered frequently, in popular song lyrics, in the titles of Indian TV shows and in the titles of Indian movies, such as Mast, Masti (2004), the Kannada movie Masti (2007), etc.

References to elephants in musth (whose temporin secretion is often referred to as "ichor") are frequent in classical Indian poetry and prose; for example, in the Raghuvaṃśa, Kalidasa says that the king’s elephants drip ichor in seven streams to match the scent put forth by the seven-leaved 'sapta-cchada' (= "seven-leaf") [7] tree (perhaps Alstonia scholaris). Some poets turn it around to compare the elephant’s ichor to the 'saptacchada'. The phenomenon has been described in poetry much before the time of Kalidasa, in Sanskrit, Tamil and Pali literature.

Shooting an Elephant is a possibly autobiographical account by George Orwell in which he describes how an elephant in Burma had an attack of musth and went on to kill an Indian, leading the story's narrator to shoot it.

The Tamil movie Kumki, which revolves around a mahout and his trained elephant, shows his elephant in musth period towards the climax. Captive elephants are either trained for duties in temples (and in cultural festivals), or trained as a Kumki elephant which confronts wild elephants and prevents them from entering into tribal villages. Elephants trained for temple duties are of a gentle nature and cannot face wild elephants. In this movie, a tribal village wants to hire a Kumki elephant to chase away wild elephants which enter the village every harvest season. The mahout, who is in want of money, takes his temple-trained elephant to do this job, in the vain hope that wild elephants won't come in. But wild elephants start attacking the village on the harvest day. The temple-trained elephant gets into musth and thus fights with the wild elephants, kills the most notorious among the herd, and gets killed because of injuries sustained during the fight.